With the recent passage of the Chips act that will shower $50 billion on the U.S. semiconductor industry while Washington embargoes exports of key chips to China, America is going back to its future. In the 77 years since the end of World War II, both U.S. political parties, American economists, Wall Street and the Business Roundtable have preached free markets, free trade and globalization. Indeed, as counselor to the secretary of commerce in the Reagan administration, I was directed by the Secretary and the White House to negotiate a halt to “Japan’s unfair industrial policies and mercantilist trade practices” such as subsidization of its semiconductor industry.

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